4 Tips for Parents When Your Kids Wake Up Too Early | AD

Is there anything more adorable than your kids sneaking into your room early in the morning and bouncing on your bed to wake you up? Yes. The answer is yes. A hundred things

We love our children more life itself of course, but sometimes, just sometimes it would be nice to get a little lie in. Especially at the weekend. Is that too much to ask for?

Some kids however just seem to be the ultimate morning people. They wake up at some ungodly antisocial hour so-filled with excited for a new day of adventures that they can’t wait to share it with you. It’s amazing and annoying in equal measure.

Well, if you’re a parent of one or more of these early birds, then this is the article for you. Read on below and I’ll give you four things you can to when your kids wake up just that little bit too early.

Adjust their bedtime and nap time

Kids have a pesky habit of growing and developing pretty quickly. You may have noticed? What this means is that their needs and demands also change pretty quickly. Sleep is one of these needs and one of the most important.

Knowing how much rest a night is healthy for your child is essential. Once you have an awareness of this then maybe all you have to do to solve your problem is to adjust their bedtime. Your problem could be something as simple as packing your sprog off to bed too early.

It could also be that junior is getting too many naps during the day, or that nap time is just a little bit too close to bedtime. Every child is different and what may work from your friend Janice and her little one, probably won’t work exactly the same for your kid.

Of course parenting isn’t an exact science but it does pay to experiment. Alter bedtime a little here and there, make a note and experiment again. Nothing too dramatic as you’ll cause havoc, but little tweaks can have big results.

Block out all the light

I bet you haven’t spent much time thinking about curtains have you? Well, why would you, they are basically the dullest thing in the world. But they are hugely important for our sleep.

Countless millennia of human evolution has linked daylight with being awake and alert and darkness with sleep, these circadian rhythms are hardwired into our children from birth.

If your sproglet is getting up much too early for your liking the very first thing you need to do is do an audit of their curtain situation. Go to their room, draw the curtains and turn off the light. If that room isn’t pitch black, even in the middle of the day, then your curtains are not doing their one job properly. Fix them!

If the curtains in your child’s room are letting in the dawn rays then it’s little wonder he or she is bounding out of bed. They are just doing what evolution tells them to do.

Experiment with snacks

One of the main reasons your little mini-me might be rising so very very early is a pretty basic one – they’re hungry.

Kids, as you may have noticed, have a much lower tolerance for withstanding even a slight bit of hunger than you or I. They never simply want food, no, they always need it. And need it right now!

If junior wakes up much too early every morning with a rumbling belly then there are two things you can do to put a stop to this. Firstly, you can give him a more sensible pre-bed snack. Something that will leave him fuller for longer. Try to use foods that also have sleep promoting qualities, like bananas, kiwis, almonds, walnuts, yoghurt or even a bit of cheese. Again experiment, try different combinations out and see what works.

If a playing around with a pre-bed snack doesn’t work, then it could be time to introduce the self-service morning snack. Leave a banana or apple on their bedside table, then if they get hungry they have a little healthy snack to satiate themselves. Simple. No need for them to be waking you up now is there?

Give up, join them and embrace the morning

To be honest, if the above tips don’t work it could be time to simple become a morning person yourself. And lets face it, there isn’t actually anything better than seeing the adorable little faces of our children first thing in the morning. Especially while they are still sleepy and are just looking for a hug.

Embrace this moment while it lasts. In the blink of an eye they will be surly teenagers and it’s going to be a daily battle to get them out of bed at all. Oh, and hugs will probably be out-of-the-question too!

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Hi, I'm Donna - a full time blogger living in Camberley, Surrey with my husband Dave and our two children - Athena and Troy. I write about the ups and downs of family life, our adventures and the ordinary moments in between.